While a huge portion of the streaming audience is spending their Memorial Day weekend watching the Friends reunion special, those with Disney+ were given a new add-on option in the new Cruella movie. The Emma Stone-led origin story of the villain from 101 Dalmatians franchise is best described as “gritty,” even if the biggest news from the movie was anything but. That’s because a supposed leak of a pivotal scene from the film went viral, in large part because it was bizarrely funny out of context.
Serious spoilers ahead here, as the rest of the post discusses one of the major reveals from the movie that hit the Disney streaming service (and theaters) this weekend. But, well, Cruella’s origin story apparently follows a lot of other famous works: namely that she’s evil and really hates Dalmatians for a very personal reason: they killed her mother.
In a clip that went viral on Twitter this weekend, a scene from the movie apparently showed the death of Cruella’s mother in front of her as a child. And it was, well, dogs to blame. Dogs running wild and pushing her mother over a cliff to her death. No, really. Many people were shocked that the film resorted to a classic motivational trope here, especially with it being dogs killing a human. Which is why the clip, and many tweets referencing it, quickly went viral.
The plot of "Cruella" looks so ridiculous. It completely undermines the gritty and nuanced realism of the original "101 Dalmations."
— Josh Gondelman (@joshgondelman) May 29, 2021
can't believe i collected all the dalmatians in kingdom hearts just for them to murder cruella's mom
— FR☆N 🪽 (@finalfrantasy) May 29, 2021
Cruella explaining how she became evil pic.twitter.com/Epqp2HR1cS
— MrsFishVEVO (@Will_Kellogg) May 29, 2021
That disbelief, however, soon gave way to memes that doubled down on the absurdity of dogs plotting the death of a girl’s mother. Especially out of context, the clip was pretty absurd.
You’re laughing, Dalmatians murdered Cruella’s mom and you’re laughing pic.twitter.com/C7LR1GYWvc
— the original self-identified emo (@ThyArtIsMemes) May 29, 2021
https://twitter.com/lukeisamazing/status/1398705812655296512?s=19
https://twitter.com/IAmGryphoneer/status/1398727294810796040
It had a few people offering up ideas for future origin stories.
looking forward to the upcoming Disney movie GASTON, in which we will get to see Gaston's parents murdered by literacy and respect for women
— Janel Comeau (@VeryBadLlama) May 29, 2021
Or even more nuanced origin ideas that would have spawned fewer memes.
A more compelling cruella origin story would have been if her mother had a pair of Dalmatians that she loved and spoiled and pampered, but was unable to connect emotionally with cruella. Or simply too cruel to. She never wanted a child. So all of the affection went to the dogs.
— Carlz ships huskerdust (@CarlzSays) May 29, 2021
There were just other really good Cruella memes out there, too.
— M.A.R.S.F. (COMM SLOTS closed) 🇵🇹 (@PPDPPL_art) May 29, 2021
Cruella de Vil doing the Oldboy hallway fight scene on 101 Dalmatians
— Jae Bearhat (@fussybabybitch) May 29, 2021
We’ll see if Disney continues down this path for antagonist origin stories, but this one didn’t go down as gritty as they hoped this time around.